Nuno Soares was born in Oporto and started his musical studies at the age of six. In 1998 Nuno graduated from Artave, a professional music school, where he worked with Suzanna Lidegran and Alberto Gaio Lima.
In 2002 Nuno graduated with a BMus(Hons) Degree from the Royal College of Music, London. Being a student of Dr. Felix Andrievsky, he also studied viola with Brian Hawkins and conducting with Neil Thomson. In July 2000 he was awarded the Dove Prize by the Royal College of Music, a prize for the best violinist of the year.
In May 2004 Nuno graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Music, USA, with a Master of Music in Performance. There he studied with Stephen Rose (leader of the second violins of the Cleveland Orchestra) and William Preucil (concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra and formerly first violin of the Cleveland Quartet).
Throughout the years Nuno attended several masterclasses with such distinguished professors as Gerardo Ribeiro, Zakhar Bron, Felix Andrievsky, Zvi Zeitlin, Victor Danchenko, Augutin Leon Ara and Lydia Mordkovich. In chamber music, he also had the opportunity to work with Augustin Dumay, Maria João Pires, Jian Wang, Peter Marsh and Peter Salaff.
Nuno Soares performs regularly as soloist, in solo violin recitals or accompanied by the pianists Youri Popov, Helena Marinho, Cristina Casale, Ilya Sinaisky, Jakub Czekierda and Karolina Kowalczewska in Portugal, Spain, France, England, Poland, Cape Verde and USA. As a soloist he appeared with Dulwich Orchestral Society – Mozart “Sinfonia Concertante”; Artave Orchestra – Sibelius Violin Concerto; Orquestra do Norte – Beethoven and Mozart Violin Concertos; Orquestra da EPMVC – Vieuxtemps Concerto n. 5; Orquestra Clássica de Espinho – Schostakovich Concerto n.1; Camerata Medina – Concertos by Bach and Vivaldi.
He is the leader and founder of the Camerata Medina. Former concertmaster of the Orquestra de Câmara do Minho, theOrquestra Clássica de Espinho (2006-2018), and the Atlantic Coast Orchestra (2015-2019), Nuno also worked with the Remix Ensemble at Casa da Música – Porto. In 2013 he created the ARTDuo with the cellist Miguel Fernandes.
His first CD, Nuno Soares – Violin, recorded in August 2012 in Poland, with the pianists Jakub Czekierda and Karolina Kowalczewska, features some of the most representative works for violin and piano of Tartini, Paganini, Wieniawski, Szymanowski and Benetó. In 2015 Nuno Soares recorded the complete works for violin of the Portuguese composer Frederico de Freitas, with the pianist Helena Marinho and the cellist Miguel Fernandes, and reviewed the violin parts of these works for the Critical Edition organized by the University of Aveiro in collaboration with the AVA Editions. More recently Nuno recorded the complete works for violin and piano of Francisco Benetó (2016) and Luís de Freitas Branco (2019) with the pianist Youri Popov. All these recordings of Portuguese composers were edited by the label mpmp.
Nuno is professor of violin at Escola Profissional de Música de Espinho and at the University of Aveiro, having taught previously at Escola Superior de Música, Artes e Espectáculo – Porto. In the last years he has devoted special attention to Portuguese music for violin and in 2019 he will graduate of the DMus Program at the University of Aveiro having investigated and rediscovered the music of Francisco Benetó.
